The UW/Fred Hutch Center for AIDS Research is pleased to announce the 2025 New Investigator Award (NIA) recipients. The purpose of this award program is to encourage early-stage investigators (at a senior stage of training or recently independent) to conduct independent research, acquire preliminary data to use for exogenous grant submissions, publish, receive mentorship, and write one or more grants to obtain funding to continue their HIV/AIDS research careers. Recipients are awarded up to $70,000 total (direct costs) for 2-year non-interdisciplinary projects, or $80,000 (direct costs) total for 2-year interdisciplinary projects.
Congratulations to our 2025 CFAR NIA Awardees, Dr. Mia Faerch of Seattle Children’s, Dr. Nathifa Moyo of Fred Hutch, Dr. Jennifer Qin of the University of Washington, Dr. Katie Strobel of the University of Washington/Seattle Children’s, Dr. Emily Voldal of Fred Hutch, and Dr. Sihong Zhang of Fred Hutch!
Mia Faerch, PhD
Staff Scientist, Seattle Children’s
Project Title: Impact of Lencapavir-Induced Gag Lattice Remodeling on Host Factor Engagement During HIV-1
Mentors: Bruce Torbett (Seattle Children’s/UW), Rob Moritz (Institute for Systems Biology)
Collaborators: Rob Moritz (Institute for Systems Biology ), Kelly Lee (UW), Robert Dick (Emory)
Dr. Mia Faerch is a Senior Staff Scientist in the Torbett Lab at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute (SCRI), affiliated with the University of Washington, and a member of the NIH-funded Behavior of HIV In Viral Environments (B-HIVE) Center. She completed her PhD and postdoctoral fellowship at the Protein Structure-Function Research Unit (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg), where she studied various proteins directly related to autism, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, ESKAPE pathogens, and HIV-1. Her current research focuses on using proteomics and high-resolution imaging to study small compound and host factor interactions with HIV-1. With support from the CFAR New Investigator Award (NIA), she is planning to expand her research to assess how lenacapavir-induced Gag lattice remodeling impacts host factor engagement during HIV-1 assembly.
Nathifa Moyo, PhD, MSc
Senior Staff Scientist, Fred Hutch
Project Title: A comparison of HIV-specific T-cell clonal dynamics induced by immunological prophylaxis platforms
Mentor: Julie McElrath (Fred Hutch)
Dr. Nathifa A. Moyo is a Senior Staff Scientist in the VIDD at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. Her past work in Immunology, Infectious Disease and Oncology involved developing T cell immunological prophylaxis for HIV-1 and TCR-T cell therapies for solid tumors, as well as investigating innate immune responses to Influenza A virus infection. Her current research focuses on characterizing antigen-specific B and T cell immune responses to HIV immunological prophylaxis. She provides scientific and clinical oversight and project management for the development and execution of HIV immunological prophylaxis and monoclonal antibody trials within the HVTN. Her CFAR funded research aims to define the qualitative features of HIV-specific T cell clones induced by different immunological prophylaxis platforms. A comparison of these features is crucial to enhancing our ability to induce protective immunity.
Jennifer Qin, MD
Maternal Fetal Medicine Fellow and Acting Instructor, UW
Project Title: Developing a Decision Aid on Infant Feeding for Birthing People Living with HIV
Mentors: Jane Hitti (UW), Lyndsey Benson (UW)
Dr. Jennifer Qin is a second year Maternal Fetal Medicine fellow at the University of Washington interested in perinatal infectious disease. Her interest in public health and infectious disease is grounded in her background in community activism in Chicago and Baltimore. She has a particular interest in designing interventions that improve the quality of pregnancy decision making. Her current research is on developing a patient decision aid (PDA) on infant feeding for birthing people living with HIV (PLHIV) in the US. The goal of her New Investigator Award is to pilot test this prototype PDA in order to evaluate its effectiveness and acceptability among PLHIV and to gather feedback from providers who care for PLHIV to help make this a helpful, generalizable tool to support shared decision making on infant feeding.
Katie Strobel, MD, MSCR*
Assistant Professor, UW/Seattle Children’s
Project Title: Evaluating the impact of human milk oligosaccharide composition of Bifidobacterium infantis colonization and anthropometric growin in infants who are HIV-exposed but uninfected
Mentors: Heather Jaspan (Seattle Children’s Research Institute), Anna Happel (UCT)
Collaborators: Lars Bode (University of California San Diego), Sean Gibbons (Institute for Systems Biology)
Dr. Katie Strobel is a board-certified neonatologist and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Neonatology at the University of Washington, whose research focuses on optimizing maternal-infant nutrition and its relationship to the gut microbiome in vulnerable populations. Her work spans clinical and translational science to understand the mechanisms behind growth faltering and identify microbiome-targeted interventions through human milk that improve infant growth and neurodevelopment. As part of this work, she is conducting a secondary analysis of a sub-Saharan African randomized clinical trial examining how human milk oligosaccharide composition in women living with HIV influences Bifidobacterium infantis gut colonization and anthropometric growth in HIV-exposed but uninfected infants.
UW Pediatrics Faculty Profile: Dr. Katie Strobel
*Note: Awarded utilizing non-federal, institutional commitment funding.
Emily Voldal, PhD
Staff Scientist, Fred Hutch
Project Title: Leveraging baseline data in cluster randomized trials for HIV prevention to improve precision and balance
Mentors: Deborah Donnell (Fred Hutch), Oliver Laeyendecker (NIAID/Johns Hopkins), Katrina Ortblad (Fred Hutch)
Dr. Emily Voldal is a biostatistician and Staff Scientist in the VIDD at Fred Hutch Cancer Center. Her past work focused on statistical methods for the design and analysis of stepped wedge cluster-randomized trials. Dr. Voldal’s CFAR New Investigator project was motivated by her work with the HIV Prevention Trials Network PopART study. This project will examine the use of baseline information in the design and analysis of cluster-randomized trials for HIV-related research, and quantify the impact of baseline HIV incidence data on trial design and analysis to inform future studies.
Sihong Zhang, PharmD
Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Fred Hutch
Project Title: Associations Between FcRn Promoter Polymorphisms, Expression Levels, and the Pharmacokinetics of HIV-Prevention Monoclonal Antibodies
Mentors: Yunda Huang (Fred Hutch/UW), Ollivier Hyrien (Fred Hutch/UW)
Collaborators: Maria Lemos (Fred Hutch), Daniel Geraghty (Fred Hutch), Julie McElrath (Fred Hutch), Miao Li (FDA)
Dr. Sihong Zhang is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center specializing in clinical pharmacology and pharmacometrics. After earning her PharmD from the University of Minnesota in 2023, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics (PK/PD) with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Certara. Her current research, funded by a CFAR New Investigator Award, aims to quantify how FcRn promoter VNTR genetic variation and expression levels affect the pharmacokinetics of broadly neutralizing HIV monoclonal antibodies—specifically focusing on VRC01 and its enhanced-binding LS-mutant, VRC07-523LS.
To learn more, visit the CFAR New Investigator Awards page or contact us at cfardev@uw.edu.